Realizations
by SnowyRefuge
Summary: Arturia has been posing as Arthur von Einzbern, a talented English fencer chosen to be one of the seven representatives to Angra Mainyu's Boy's Academy for the Gifted. But as the year drags on, old secrets are unveiled and new ones are brought to light. "Morgan sneered, finger tight around the trigger. 'You should have never been born.' BANG! And the body hit the floor."
1. Prologue

**An AU for Fate/Zero. How very nice. ****And, even better, it's gonna be a **_**high school **_**AU**_**.**_** Thankfully, however, I've talked myself out of the love triangle that I was originally going to do. ****But,**_** first thing's first, **_**we have Morgan le Fay opening the story up for us. Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: If I owned the Fate/franchise, Fate/Prototype would be released by now. Because only God knows how many times a day I watch that OVA.**

_"She has his eyes!"_

Morgan stood at the doorway of her mother's room, listening, a silent ghost that could be neither seen nor heard. Across the hall sat another doorframe, spread wide open. Inside, Morgan's younger sister Morgause slept soundly. Morgan could just barely hear her softly snoring.

But that wasn't what she was focused on.

_"I just can't stand to look at her anymore, Gorlois! She reminds me too much of him!"_

The sound of her mother's voice was almost hysterical; Morgan could hear her sobbing and, just past the crack in the door, see her shadow leaning into her father's chest.

_"Don't worry, Igraine," _her father's voice was soft and reassuring, but also firm, telling her that things had to be done a certain way._ "As soon as all of this is over, we can find a different home for her. That Einzbern woman has been particularly sympathetic, so she might be willing to take her."_

Morgan turned away from the doorframe and looked farther down the hall, to where a door sat closed off to the rest of the house. Slowly, now hardly even listening to her parents as they spoke to one another, she walked towards the door. Her bare feet rubbed against the lush carpet silently, and she could feel her tiny, steady heart beat more and more quickly from within her chest as she approached.

Her feet stopped in front of the plainly painted door, and her mother's wailing became louder. Her father's voice became a mere backdrop to all the sobbing.

Her hand reached forward and grasped the golden handle to the door. She turned it, and slipped into the room.

The room was almost completely dark, the only light coming in being from the street lights just outside the window. From that light, Morgan could just barely distinguish the shadow of a crib in the corner of the room, so she walked over to it.

Inside the crib slept a tiny baby girl with small tufts of golden hair on top of her head. The baby's face, small and round, was almost completely still, with the exception of it scrunching up with a dream every now and then. One tiny arm lay at her side, the other rested on top of her stomach, which rose and fell with small labored breaths. With the help of a stool, Morgan stood over the edge of the crib and watched the baby girl for a few moments before letting an arm fall into it, and poked the side of the baby's face with her index finger.

_"What's all the fuss about?"_ She pondered aloud. _"You don't seem all that important to me."_

Then again, she knew that there was more to it than what she had been told.

She sighed, and looked back to the door that she had closed on her way in. She could just barely hear her parents now. Her mother must have been calming. She looked back to the baby, whose arm was beginning to fidget.

_"Do you know, 'Turia?"_ Morgan asked the baby sullenly. _"Do you know why everyone's throwing such a big fit over you?"_ She waited a moment in silence for an answer that she knew would never come. _"I guess not. You're just a stupid baby, after all."_

The baby, Arturia, turned slightly in her sleep. Her eyes squeezed a little, and she moved her arms about, but then she stopped her movements. Morgan was able to catch her eyes opening through the lamplight outside. Tiny green seas, unlike any in her family.

Arturia's eyes scrunched for a moment, the way any human's would when looking through this little light, and her tiny face broke into a grin. Her arms lifted, as if trying to catch Morgan's face in them. Annoyed, the young girl flicked the baby's forehead with her index finger.

_"Stop it."_

Arturia's face contorted for a moment with a quick flash of pain, and then began to cry out, much louder than their mother had been only a minute ago.

_"Dumb baby,"_ Morgan muttered. _"Crying doesn't help you, you know. Mother doesn't want you."_

She felt a soft feeling of satisfaction with these words. She and Morgause had been receiving little attention these past few months; the fact that this thing would be out of her hair soon was pacifying, to say the least. Pretty soon, she thought, she and Morgause would have their parents back, and no other little sister would ruin that.

Arturia's wails became louder, and the sound of footsteps dragging along the floor could be heard from outside. Hurriedly, Morgan got off of the stool and ran into the closet at the other side of the room, just in time to hear the door opening.

The door closed, and Arturia stopped crying.

_"Damn child,"_ Morgan heard her father curse._ "You're as much a nuisance as your father is."_

He said nothing else. Morgan could hear tiny noises that must have been Arturia cooing. Such an innocent noise. So very unaware of everything going on around her.

Sneaking into someone's home... Stealing their parents... Making life miserable... Morgan couldn't stand it.

Soon, her father left the room. Morgan snuck out of the closet and took one final look at the baby that slept soundly in the crib once again. This time, there was a small blue blanket over her belly.

Morgan quickly snatched the piece of cloth, threw it to the floor, and went back to join Morgause in the land of dreams.

**Author's Note:**

**Short, but I think it gets the job done, since Morgan will play a bit of a part in this story. I don't feel as if enough people try to sympathize with her in the Arthurian legends. Then again, I guess I'm a bit biased, since I read and loved _I Am Morgan le Fay _by Nancy Springer. Whatever. Please don't forget to review and tell me what you thought! Bye!**


	2. Einzbern Artie-Kun

**I finally got around to making the first chapter (even if it's more of a second prologue)! Yay! (Note: When I say "football," I will be referring to the sport where you, you know, kick a ****_ball_**** around with your ****_foot_****. I just think that the American terminology for football and soccer is stupid... Plus, the characters are not American, so THERE.)**

**(Last note: I wrote this up in one afternoon and didn't go back and edit nearly as much as I should have; please feel free to point out any grammar mistakes, because if there are too many, I will edit them.)**

**Realizations**

**Chapter 1:**

**Einzbern Artie-Kun**

**The Fate/series isn't mine! If it was, all permission to animate would have gone to Ufotable in the first place, and DEEN would have never gotten their hands on Fate/Stay Night.**

Arturia von Einzbern's friends used to call her "Artie" when they were kids.

Gawain, Lancelot, and Bedivere, in particular, were very fond of using this nickname around the time that they founded their little group called the "Round Table." In all honesty, the fact that Arturia was able to meet so many other children from England in Japan had been a miracle in itself, but the fact that they all adored sports was only a bonus to them. They would spend days on end, running into the woods and splashing in the streams, climbing over their neighbors' fences to see who could do it fastest, and racing through the streets on bikes for their winnings composing of bubble gum and Pokemon cards.

Life had been well. And "Artie" in particular, had been hailed as their leader, despite the fact that she had been the sole female in the group that was nearly exclusive to boys. They had all adored her and her supreme level of athletic ability that none of them could ever seem to match. She had always been good with wrestling, her endurance was slightly better than the average boy in her group, and she had yet to meet another child that could defeat her in a stick-fighting challenge. She was even the star in more popular sports such as baseball and football. "Artie" was supreme.

And, this name had spread very quickly throughout her grade school, even if most never even known her. Whenever asked who the most athletic child in the school was, most would have said "Einzbern Artie-Kun." It hardly ever mattered to Arturia that people thought she was a boy, however, because she never particularly saw herself like too many other girls. She detested playing with dolls, butterflies and flowers were a bore to her, and the only reason she ever wore a skirt was because the school had been very strict with its uniforms; if she'd had things her way, she would have been wearing shorts and a T-shirt all the time.

Perhaps it was because of this reason that no one ever bothered correcting others when they mistook "Artie" for a boy. After all, if she, herself, didn't care, then why should the others?

But, even so, Arturia's mother, Irisviel von Einzbern, had been rather surprised when she picked up the phone one day and received a call from the grade school about her _son_.

"M-My son?" Irisviel spluttered into the phone.

"Yes," the man on the other end of the phone answered, seemingly immune to the woman's shock. "We have been conducting a survey around the school and have been hearing Arthur- that is what "Artie" is short for, correct?- associated with sports quite often. It seems that the other students and teachers hold him in high regards. In fact, we got your number from your child's baseball coach."

Irisviel was at a loss for words. "Um... Yes, but-"

"No need for worries, Einzbern-San," the man interrupted her with a warm voice. "We would just like to inform you that if your son continues with a good reputation and keeps high enough grades in junior high, we may want to consider him for a full scholarship to Angra Mainyu's Academy for the Gifted."

Once again, the woman was put into shock by the name. "'Angra Mainyu...' That's that prestigious private academy for boys, isn't it?"

"Yes, indeed. We would just like for you to keep this proposition in mind since your son is about to graduate grade school. Please be sure to keep his grades up; we would love to have someone as talented as him in our school."

After that quick interaction, Irisviel hung up, checked up on her newborn baby, Illyasviel, and went to speak with her daughter on the subject of a boy's academy.

What most of people had not known about the Einzbern family was how much of a financial crisis they were in. Irisviel had run from her prestigious German family at the age of twenty with only enough money to get her by for the next few years, and she had little experience in the world outside of her family's great castle, so little people were willing to hire her for a job. And it hardly helped that she, an albino, had many problems from within her immune system that sent her into lapses of sickness very often. Her second daughter, Illya, was also born with albinism and suffered many of the same issues as her. And so the offer of a free, good high school educational system for her eldest daughter was utterly tantalizing, even if it meant that the girl would need to pose as a boy.

But Irisviel still had enough decency to have daughter's input on the issue at hand. At the question as to whether she would mind being "Arthur von Einzbern" from now on, Arturia had to think for a moment, looking up at the ceiling of their corroding apartment with a serious face.

After a moment, she looked back to her mother and smiled excitedly. "If my name is Arthur from now on, can I wear a boy's uniform instead of that stupid skirt?"

And so it was decided. That year, after school, Irisviel went to court and had Arturia's name legally changed to Arthur. She would also later start taking up horse-back riding and fencing lessons, and she even get her hair cut short (on the condition that her bangs would be left untouched; her hair seemed to be the one feminine aspect that the girl seemed to take pride in about herself).

The last, and final, step had been enrolling "Arthur" a male student into junior high school. This, itself, had been the most nerve-wrecking part of the entire process to Irisviel von Einzbern, who was almost convinced that the teachers would see something wrong as soon as they took a look at her daughter. After all, despite her boyish attitude, Arturia was still female, and she looked it, too. But things proved to work well. Her teachers had accepted her as a male because of her rejection of most things girly and her wide acceptance among groups of boys.

The only thing that had worried Irisviel had been Arturia's old friends, who all knew of her identity as a female. What if they told a teacher? What if they let it slip? What if they started calling her "Arturia" rather than "Arthur"?

But it seemed as if her friends still saw her as nothing less than their old friend, Artie, and it was almost as if nothing would change that. They had all understood her circumstances and treated the girl's decision with the maturity of adults.

Better yet, Arturia's distinguishing features had begun to evolve beyond girl-hood and grew into something slightly less tale-tell of her gender. By the end of her junior high school years, she simply appeared to be what most would call a "pretty boy," and she'd even had girls growing with crushes on her!

However, as puberty pushed its way into her, Arturia had become more self-conscious of herself, just as any other girl her age. She began spending all her time before school looking in the mirror, making sure that her bangs were straight and that the short hair at the back of her head didn't stick up at angles. She began to eat less, convinced that she was gaining too much weight, and Irisviel would sometimes catch the girl in her room, awkwardly holding and staring down at her small breasts. Eventually, Arturia would reveal to her mother that maybe she wasn't cut out for being a boy; she had begun to feel increasingly awkward when her guy friends would banter with her, and her best friend Lancelot's long-time crush, Guinevere, was beginning to take an interest in her. What was she to do?

Without even the slightest hesitation, Irisviel had replied to her: "Arturia, remember that this is your choice, your decision, and that if you decide you don't want to do this any more, you don't have to. We can always find a good mixed school that would offer you a full scholarship, as well. Don't you forget that."

Arturia had look up as her mother said this with a hand on her shoulder and her big, characteristic smile. But even if the words set seemed comforting, and Arturia really would have liked to believe them, she couldn't. Angra Mainyu was one of the best schools in the area that a person could possibly go to, if not _the_ best possible school, and to be able to get there on any kind of scholarship would be a blessing in itself. And if she were to come out with her gender at that time, then all chances would drop dramatically to be able to get into any school. Just think of it: What school would accept a girl that had lied about her gender all through junior high? It was all probably illegal enough, as it was.

In addition... Both Irisviel's and Illyasviel's conditions had been worsening dramatically within the past year, and they had been needing extra medical attention that the family could hardly afford.

She _needed_ a school like Angra Mainyu.

Arturia forced a smiled upon her lips when she looked at her mother and shook her head. "I can handle it, mother. I'm just being dramatic."

Irisviel had known something was wrong, and pressed on despite her daughter's declarations that she would be fine, nonetheless. It eventually ended with Arturia deciding to ignore the woman and leaving the apartment so as to not be late for fencing practice.

That very next week, Guinevere would stop Arturia while walking down the hall with Lancelot and announce her undying love to Arthur von Einzbern. And despite the fact that "Arthur" would politely reject the girl, Lancelot would refuse to even look at his best friend for the next month, and avoid the girl like the plague throughout the rest of junior high school.

The rest of Artie's old friends would see this act, of course, and see it as a simple argument at first, but eventually begin to take up Lancelot's side and slowly drift away their old Round Table leader. She couldn't possibly have known how much it pained Lancelot, after all, since she had never loved anyone.

Sometimes, all alone at home, the miserable girl named Arthur would look at herself in the mirror. She would look at the male uniform she adorned, at her tiny breasts which she had unwrapped as soon as she got home, at her shortened hair and lengthened bangs, and at her thin yet toned and muscled hands, before looking up at her face, so full of boyish features, yet still with a feminine shape to them.

She would stare into her sea green eyes, and stare, and stare, and stare until Irisviel came back from work and collapsed on the couch, leaving Illya to wander into her own room and lay on her bed, coughing up a lung. And then Arturia would stand up, and begin caring for her family.


End file.
